Local basketball players are teaming up to fight hunger in our city with the inaugural Hoops for Hunger charity basketball event coming up this weekend.

The event is being hosted by the Moose Jaw Thunder Basketball Club, the Riverview Royals girls basketball team and the Ballers Boys Club at Riverview Collegiate throughout the afternoon and into the evening on Saturday.

“We’re going to play basketball for ten hours,” said Thunder and Royals coach Curt Lorge. “We’ll have some alumni coming in and playing some games, there will be a parent game, it will just be a big day of basketball.”

The Thunder players will kick-off off the day of basketball at 1 p.m. on Saturday afternoon and then there will be games throughout the rest of the day right up until 10 p.m.

All proceeds from the event will be going to Hunger in Moose Jaw.

“It’s all been on the girls, they’ve been running around gathering sponsors and getting donations,” said Lorge, who added that he’s proud of the initiative shown by the players in organizing the event.

“It’s amazing that the girls are interested in something like this at their age, this is grade six all the way through to grade 12 girls, and just the responsibility that they’ve taken in wanting to give back to their community and that basketball can give them so much more, it’s an important lesson that we’re trying to teach them.”

There will be donation boxes set up at the door throughout the day.